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The Doxology ~ Awake My Soul and With the Sun

Thomas Ken ~ (1637-1711)

Words:Thom­as Ken, Man­u­al of Pray­ers for the Use of the Schol­ars of Win­ches­ter Col­lege, 1674.

Ken wrote this hymn at a time when the es­tab­lished church be­lieved on­ly Script­ure should be sung as hymns—with an em­pha­sis on the Psalms. Some con­sid­ered it sin­ful and blas­phe­mous to write new lyr­ics for church mu­sic, akin to ad­ding to the Script­ures. In that at­mo­sphere, Ken wrote this and sev­er­al other hymns for the boys at Win­chest­er Col­lege, with strict in­struct­ions that they use them on­ly in their rooms, for pri­vate de­vo­tions. Iron­ic­al­ly, the last stan­za has come into wide­spread use as the Dox­ol­o­gy, per­haps the most fr­equent­ly used piece of mu­sic in pub­lic wor­ship. At Ken’s request, the hymn was sung at his fun­er­al, fit­tingly held at sun­rise.

So…I was very surprised to find out that there is so much more to the Doxology and that it was taken from a longer hymn called Awake My Soul and With the Sun. I’m glad to know the whole story behind this great piece probably every one of us has sung time and time again! Thanks Rich for the post on your blog!

Lana, Kim, and Rosemary,
I was pretty shocked when I saw the whole hymn on a friends blog. Then when I read the story about Ken and how it all came about I had to share. God has really blessed some of our fellow believers with such a creative gift of expression.

I always knew the Doxology was part of a larger hymn, because at my church they always say “Hymn 380, verse 3” for where to find the Doxology. But this is definitely not the hymn in our hymnal, because that’s only three verses long.

Back from some research – ours is actually a hodgepodge: That last verse is from the Thomas Ken original, but the first two verses were written by Isaac Watts. Here it is:

1 From all that dwell below the skies
let the Creator’s praise arise!
Let the Redeemer’s Name be sung
through every land, by every tongue!

In case you’re wondering, I’m an Episcopalian and our hymnal is the “Hymnal 1982.” I didn’t realize until just this summer that different denominations used different hymnals – the Catholic churches I went to with my cousin had two hymnals and no Book of Common Prayer – very strange for me (and difficult, as I don’t know their service except the bits that are the same as ours).

Oh! I’ve just listened to the tune from that link you showed me. Is that the tune you use in your church? Because it’s different from the one we use – this is ours: http://www.ccel.org/cceh/0000/000006d.mid

How weird! The current choirmaster at my church is fond of changing up the tunes for the service music, but this is one that’s never changed for us, so it’s a little odd for me. xD

Funny that I never really think beyond what my church does, and then am surprised when other churches do things differently. >.>

Hello. I am doing a research paper on this song and Thomas Ken. Anyone have any good sources that I could use to get information…especially about the conversion from a hymn to the doxology.
Anything would be helpful!
Thanks.

Thank u for sharing! I did know the story of this great Hymn but what I’m searching for and cannot find is the music.. I mean the mp3 version and not only instrumental. If anyone of u guys knows where to find it please let me know! 🙂
my email address is born2badisciple@gmail.com
Thank u vrery much! GBU!

Wow, I never thought there was more than one verse to that song until last week when we sang two verses of it. I, like another who commented, sang the entire thing all alone in front of my computer screen. What wonderful words!